Posts tagged social media

It’s nearly 1 a.m. and I am glued to my computer watching the Twitter “tweets” from folks in California experiencing a 5.0 earthquake. By chance, I was online and saw a message come through that an earthquake was rattling Central L.A. I searched for the keyword and watched a steady stream of communication come through that expressed many human emotions — fear, relief and humor.

This is a significant event for two reasons. First, this is the first natural disaster since Twitter reached a critical mass of users in the last few months. Without the numbers supporting it, it could not have been an effective “personal broadcast channel.” I witnessed the power of in-the-moment communication through thousands of perspectives.

Second, because of the platform’s immediacy, eyewitness accounts of the quake were streaming out of the city before the traditional media could catch up. In fact, 12 minutes after the news was streaming out of L.A. on Twitter, there was still no post on the CNN website.

Yes, most of the communication I’m seeing is garbage … one fellow posted, “If Twitter is the future of news, and it’s 20,000 stories in 5 minutes saying “there was totally just an earthquake” … we’re in trouble.”

And there is a lot of humor, too. (“To minimize loss and damage in a quake, try not to own things.”) … probably because the natural disaster apparently is not too serious this time.

But woven through the OMG’s and LMAO’s was a compelling thread of humanity and an entirely new way to experience a current event. The next time there is a terrorist attack or crisis, many will “tune in” to Twitter for their news.

One of the hottest topics in social media right now is how to handle these rapidly emerging communications platforms in the context of a public company and corporate responsibility.

This is the Wild West of Internet communications and it’s getting wilder by the minute as people stream onto social media platforms and, inevitably figure out how to abuse it.

All communications, everywhere, all the time presents a nightmare scenario for corporate communications professionals. Where does the line cross between free speech and corporate responsibility? Between open community and terms of employment? How does a large company possibly monitor hundreds of thousands messages that may represent a permanent communication record?

In a recent article, I forecast that companies would have to provide strict guidelines and hierarchical lines of communication in this new era, just as it had in the old. Some readers disagreed, and the results remain to be seen, but in the last week, I’ve read about the first public revelations on internal guidelines that explicitly prohibit employees from engaging in online communications that could denigrate the reputation of the company. Some forbid employees from even revealing who they work for, in some social media situations.

Predictably, the first hard guidelines are coming from news organizations, where the lines between reporting and personal commentary cannot be blurred.

This week the Wall Street Journal posted ground rules for its employees on how to use Twitter and other social media platforms. The rules include:

Sharing your personal opinions, as well as expressing partisan political views, whether on Dow Jones sites or on the larger Web, could open us to criticism that we have biases and could make a reporter ineligible to cover topics in the future for Dow Jones.

Consult your editor before “connecting” to or “friending” any reporting contacts.

Let our coverage speak for itself, and don’t detail how an article was reported, written or edited.

Don’t disparage the work of colleagues or competitors.

Business and pleasure should not be mixed on services like Twitter … if you are in doubt about the appropriateness of a Tweet or posting, discuss it with your editor before sending.

“… personal blogs and “tweets” represent you to the outside world just as much as an 800-word article does. If you have or are getting a Facebook page, leave blank the section that asks about your political views.”

“Anything you post online can and might be publicly disseminated, and can be twisted to be used against you by those who wish you or The Times ill.”

“Just remember that we are always under scrutiny by magnifying glass and that the possibilities of digital distortion are virtually unlimited, so always ask yourself, could this be deliberately misconstrued or misunderstood by somebody who wants to make me look bad?

Should not engage in activities on the Internet which might bring the BBC into disrepute.

Should not post derogatory or offensive comments on the Internet.

Should be mindful of the information they disclose on social networking sites. Where they associate themselves with the Corporation (through providing work details or joining a BBC network) they should act in a manner which does not bring the BBC into disrepute.

Cannot indicate where they are employed on their personal blogs.

Companies are not democracies and they have the right to employ people who do not want to cause them harm. Although the media companies were among the first to deploy strict guidelines on personal use of social media, the desire to maintain an untarnished reputation is no less important for other companies and we certainly see this practice become prevalent.

Missing from any of these published policies i– consequences. How far will companies go to reach into the public domain of free speech to protect their reputations? And what about disgruntled employees who have an axe to grind against an employer? Another prediction: Companies will begin offering monetary pay-outs to employees they dismiss, with the legal condition that they engage in no public communication to disparage the company.

I think we will soon see the first examples of companies punshing employees who violate these guidelines, setting the stage for new court cases examining the rights to free speech and the role of social media in our world.

Most of the professional marketing forums are clogged with endless debate over questions like “Is Twitter for real?” and “Getting sales leads from Facebook.”

Usually I sit back and let people knock themselves out, but occasionally I join the fray, especially when people make outlandish claims about how social media platforms should be at the heart of every marketing campaign. Poppycock. (Did I actually just use that word? Gentle readers I am turning into a curmudgeon before your eyes).

Here’s a post I made in a heated debate on the viability of social media in B2B (business-to-business, as opposed to B2C — business to consumer) …

Demonstrable B2B results are scant unless you define success as “number of mentions” or “number of hits.” How is it driving top line growth?

Social media has vast opportunities to increase visibility, which hopefully will contribute to brand awareness and growth in the long-term. It also has amazing potential for consumer research. However, I am working on a class presentation and have been stymied coming up with any significant, measurable B2B growth success stories.

Why it’s not catching on

One contributor to this vacuum is the fact that many mainstream B2B companies have been slow to get into it. And why should they? Their customers aren’t pulling them into it, marketing budgets and resources have been slashed to the bone, and the focus is delivering near-term sales results. Let’s face it, a company selling wheels to Chrysler is not going to Twitter its way to success.

Another reason is that the apps to measure and quantify social media contributions are really just emerging. The technology is literally weeks or months old. The channel is not going to get attention until it can be quantified.

Finally, social media depends on the power of community. There are significant hurdles in the B2B world that do not encourage a community of all information, everywhere, all the time. One hurdle is called the SEC. Another is the risk of competitors monitoring the buzz. A third is an entrenched and tightly-controlled communication hierarchy at most major companies. For these reasons, B2B will lag significantly behind B2C in this emerging marketing channel.

Show me the money!

One of the forum participants referenced a site that claimed to have examples of mainstream businesses using social media to increase sales. I explored the link but did not see one viable case study of B2B social media success.

One article claiming “proof” that social media is relevant to B2B cites a niche restaurant site “with more than 1,000 videos posted, 10,000 images, and an average of 300 blog posts per month.” Activity does not necessarily equal economic success.

I’m not a naysayer — I DO SEE POTENTIAL and amazing progress, especially in B2C! It is only a matter of time before we start seeing B2B successes. I only hope professional marketers evangelize based on data, business fundamentals and economic realities, not simply unbridled enthusiasm and hope.

Don’t forget the lessons of the Internet bust. You cannot sustain an economic model based on site hits and video posts.

NOTE: Since I wrote this article, I’ve softened my position in this area after studying what some B2B companies are beginning to accomplish through social media. I wrote a series of articles on this topic, which include the best and worst B2B companies for social media and a post on why companies eventually MUST get into this arena: http://snipurl.com/kt4vm

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